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Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Shorter Avi Shafrin: When the lame-stream media is less than nice to Jews you can count on me to personally lead the attack; Bannon, on the other hand, is a good man, you liberal crybabies. Why oh why won't you read his fine conservative website charitably?

The sobbing of some political liberals, including, of course, many Jews, that ensued after the presidential election results were tallied has turned into wild wailing with the appointment of Stephen Bannon as senior counselor to the president-elect. Those observers were shocked enough back in August, when Mr. Bannon, the executive chairman of the politically conservative Breitbart News, was put in charge of Donald Trump’s campaign. Now, though, mouths are foaming.

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

The local school for blackhat boys was open on Thursday, Thanksgiving, until 1 pm, and closed on Friday. This confuses us.

To our mind, there are four intellectually conherent positions a Jewish school could take on Thanksgiving.

Intellectually Coherent Position #1: Thanksgiving is not our holiday, and should be ignored. If this is the local school's view why close on Thursday afternoon and Friday?

Intellectually Coherent Position #2: Thanksgiving is not our holiday, but concerns us because its observance interrupts the study of Torah. If this is the local school's view why not close for half of Friday, too? Is Thursday's Torah study more valuable than Friday's Torah study?

Intellectually Coherent Position #3: Thanksgiving it not our holiday, but we recognize the value of families enjoying time together. If this is the local school's view why not close for Thursday morning, too?

Intellectually Coherent Position #4: Thanksgiving is our holiday (we're American after all) and its observation is a civic celebration is which we should take part. If this is the local school's view, why not close for the whole day, and open on Friday

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

I'm heartened by the fact that Pence, at least, behaved like a normal politician after he was booed at the theater and addressed from the stage. Instead of exaggerating the offense and turning the moment into yet another stupid battle in the culture war, Pence denied he was offended.

Unfortunately, Trump was neither mature nor civil in his reaction, insisting on Twitter the vice president elect had been humiliated and that the cast and crew of Hamilton owed him an apology. Why did he do this? Speculations include:

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

It gives me special glee to share with you that your next president supports gay marriage. Not because I support gay marriage, too, (though I do) but because so many super Orthodox Jews told me that I was required to vote for Trump because he was certain to block the gay agenda. Well, ha ha. Jokes on you.

What does a rational and reasonable anti-Semite sound like? Now there is a question worth asking in the age of Trump! In this article from 1939 (!), a Hitler-sympathizing German American calmly and politely explains why her Jewish American husband is wrong about almost everything.

Wonder how this happy couple ended up, once Hitler's intentions became impossible to wink at?

Here's a taste:

Of course we eventually come to Hitler, Ben and I. In the eyes of Ben, as in the eyes of all his people, Hitler stands for the Jewish equivalent of the Antichrist—a little, strutting monster whose sole purpose and pleasure in life is to flog, imprison, impoverish, humiliate, and plague Israel. Few history books trace the path of persecutions against the Jews as they have occurred throughout the ages. They have occurred in ancient Rome, Poland, Russia, Spain, England, and France, usually whenever Jewry becomes too numerous and too powerful, whenever it becomes, in the eyes of Gentiles, a threat, potential or actual, to Gentile supremacy. I try to tell Ben that Hitler is merely writing another page in a history that will continue so long as the status quo between Jews and Gentiles remains—a status that only the willing shoulders of both protagonists can remove.

But it is hard for Ben to take the long view. He looks upon Hitler as something malignantly unique, and it is no use trying to tell him that a hundred years hence the world will no more call Hitler a swine for expelling the Jews than it does Edward I of England, who did the same thing in the thirteenth century—an expulsion that remained in strict effect until the time of Cromwell, because a hundred years hence another country will be having its Jewish problem

Thursday, November 10, 2016

This is my second sleepless night due to the election. I'm sure that I'm working at far less than full capacity, and will be until I can sleep again.

I'm well aware that in these situations, one has to recognize the risk of poor judgment and be careful not to do anything foolish.

Really, the ideal thing is to quietly wait it out until it passes.

So of course I thought it was a good time to post.

I have a number of Trump supporters among friends and family.

I get that they voted for Trump despite his racism and misogyny, not because of them.

They had other reasons to hope he would be the best president for us, and while I disagree vehemently with them on that, I'm okay with it.

I get that many Trump supporters are like my friends and family members.

Others are genuinely interested in the ugliness that Trump has advertised during his campaign.

I'm not okay with that.

But I also get that racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia are big, complex, long-standing evils and it will take work and time to lessen their power to make people fear and hate.

Want to know what's making me sick with sadness and helpless anger tonight?

Of course you do, that's why you're still reading this over-long, overshare-y post.

I have quite a few Facebook friends who are dedicated conservatives, people whom I genuinely like and respect even though they are coming from a very different place politically. And I thought they felt the same way about me.

But today many of them took the opportunity, in this moment when we liberals are feeling like our heart has been ripped from us and replaced with anxiety, to post about how liberals are to blame for the anger in this country, how we have been arrogant and elite and out of touch with blue collar America.

Many of these people don't like Trump either, mind you. Yet they post with a certain spiteful glee -- ha, those liberals, they thought they were so smart, well now they're getting their comeuppance. They are unable to resist relishing our confusion and misery, *even though they have liberal friends who are reading those posts.*

And that just kills me.

It's the unkindness of it.

The utter lack of compassion.

Decent and intelligent people acting with a mean-spiritedness that I find more shocking than Trump's victory itself.

I have friends who voted for Trump.

I have friends with very different beliefs than I have.

That's fine with me.

But the friends who chose to be cruel today?

This changes how I see them.

Because we can have different political views, different agendas, different values and priorities -- but kindness has to come before any of that. I thought we all understood that.

Friday, November 04, 2016

As a Toyra Tree Jee, this letter is very confusing. On the one hand the Rav says to avoid candidates like Trump who have the support of Nazis, scum and other deplorables. On the other hand he says we should only vote for candidates who pledge to appoint close-minded and ignorant judges who intend to use the constitution to impose a backwards and regressive morality on the country. What do I do?

Thursday, November 03, 2016

New person I hate: Shmuel Rabinowitz, Administrator of the Western Wall and chairman of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation

After the rioting at the kotel yesterday morning, he said: “due to deep trembling for the [possible] harm to the many Torah scrolls that were brought along” he had instructed the orderlies at the site not to clash with the demonstrators.

Meaning he'd have been happy to break heads if the Torahs hadn't been present. Why no deep trembling for the [possible] harm to human beings, you shmuck?

Wednesday, November 02, 2016

So many offensive things in this one little article, but I think the most offensive item is this:

"The head of a major Jerusalem cheder, or religious elementary school, “came to vote today,” Zell said. “He told me he had decided to vote, and explained to his students why he did so — because of the values of the Republican Party, belief in the Creator of the world and family values."

Trump and family values? Really?

Republicans and family values? Really? Sure, they are the party of family values, unless your family happens to be one of the following: poor, unemployed,non-white, uninsured, inner city, rural, single parent, disabled, atheist or democrat.

And let's not spend any more time talking about family value icons like Trump and Gingrich and Giuliani who remain part stalwarts

If it relates to Jews, Judaism, holidays, Midrash,Torah, halacha or anything similar, I probably have a post on it. And if I have a post on it, I probably have a good comment thread with great reader-provided information, too.

Try a search and see for yourself. If you can't find what you're looking for ask me.

Quotes

רֹאשׁ דְּבָרְךָ אֱמֶת קוֹרֵא מֵרֹאשׁ דּוֹר וָדוֹר עַם דּוֹרֶשְׁךָ דְּרֹשׁ
Your chief word is "truth"; You've called it out since the beginning. In each generation people interpret You [for themselves] and find [their own] meaning.

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd. -Flannery O'Connor

“When in the afterglow of religious insight I can see a way that is good for all humans as it is for me—I will know it is His way.” - R. Abraham Joshua Heschel

I don't accept at all the quite popular argument that the press is responsible for the monarchy's recent troubles. The monarchy's responsible for the monarchy's recent troubles. To blame the press is the old thing of blaming the messenger for the message. -Anthony Holden

Said behind my back

"...he's trying to show that there are other facets to Orthodox Judaism. That we don't all think one way and vote one way. And he's occasionally entertaining when he's not being mean-spirited" [PsychoToddler]"

"He's witty. He's funny. He appreciates the ridiculous in life, and has no qualms about telling you when he thinks that you're being a moron" [Cara]

" I'm pretty sure [DovBear] is a really great guy who just wants to be able to ask questions and talk about things without the fear of someone claiming he's off the derech or on his way there." [Chaviva]